Monday, November 08, 2004

This Just In

W is for Women My Ass

According to an email I just got, George Junior is appointing Dr. David Hager to:

“Head up the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA)
Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee.
The committee has not met for more than two years,
during which time its charter lapsed.
As a result, the Bush Administration is tasked with
filling all eleven positions with new members. "

The email goes on to say:

"This position does not require Congressional approval. The FDA's Reproductive Health Drugs
Advisory Committee makes crucial decisions on matters relating to drugs used in
the practice of obstetrics, gynecology and related specialties, including hormone therapy,
contraception, treatment for infertility, and medical alternatives to surgical procedures
for sterilization and pregnancy termination."


You’ll remember Dr. Hager as the author of the thrilling book As Jesus Cared for Women: Restoring Women Then and Now.

He’s the pro-life OB/GYN who is famous for refusing to prescribe contraceptives to unmarried women, and for suggesting to women suffering from PMS that they should pray their symptoms away. He also believes the birth control pill is abortion: which, technically, it is, since it keeps the fertilized egg from attaching to the uterus.

This is a key point, btw, folks. Because if you think the religious right is going to stop at overturning Roe V Wade, you need to take a look at this guy. He believes the Pill causes abortions.

You know what else, under this definition, causes abortions? Do you know what else, in other words, if this guy and his ilk, had his way, would be illegal?

IUDs. Depo shots. Any kind of birth control that relies on hormones. Any kind of birth control that relies on keeping a fertilized egg from attaching to the womb.

What sort of birth control does that leave? Condoms. Which fail something like 80% of the time. Abstinence. Which fails something like 50% of the time. And sterilization. Which works, but is, very often, a one-way road.

This is the sort of guy George Junior is putting in charge of women’s health. Women’s choices. This is exactly the sort of thing I’ve been expecting.

If you’re as worried about it as I am, let him know: e-mail to president@whitehouse.gov

Not that he’ll listen, mind you.

1 comment:

zelda1 said...

My grandmother had 13 kids, my mother ten, and I had two. The difference isn't because my grandmother and mother loved children so much more that I, but that I had better choices. My two older sisters, and I mean older since I was the the next to the youngest of ten, had to get consent for birthcontrol from their husbands; they both had five children before their husbands finally gave in and let them use contraceptives. I know if my mother would have had some kind of birth control, most of her children (including me) would not be here because she wasn't fond of screaming brats. She made that quite clear on numerous occasions when we were driving her mad. She died of cervical cancer probably from poor reproductive care. It grieves me to think someday in the very near future the young women are not going to have the same choices my generation of women had--that they may be in the same boat as my grandmother and mother. It grieves me even more to see and hear those young women supporting the bushman and his choices. I can't believe that they really know what is going on. I believe they are reading all this family value propaganda and the men in their lives via the supper table to the pulpit are pumping them full of this same propaganda and in the end it will be too late. I told a young girl just yesterday if they took away her birthcontrol pills and she had no choice for any medical procedures given by her obgyn she would have no life. It took her a while to understand what I meant. A woman can have a life outside her home with one or two children but when the numbers increase, she is tied down. And as much as we love our children there comes a time when we need something more. That's what makes the funny little saying "barefoot and pregnant" not so funny.